


A Galaxy Far

by Owlship



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Space, Gen, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-02
Updated: 2017-05-02
Packaged: 2018-10-26 20:19:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10794060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Owlship/pseuds/Owlship
Summary: The last thing Furiosa expects to find in the wreckage of what had once been a Interceptor-class starship is the quiet thrum of a generator, running rough but somehow still running at all.





	A Galaxy Far

**Author's Note:**

> An older thing written for a prompt, originally posted [on tumblr](http://v8roadworrier.tumblr.com/post/137870942656/i-cant-remember-if-you-do-star-wars-but-if-you)!

The last thing Furiosa expects to find in the wreckage of what had once been a Interceptor-class starship is the quiet thrum of a generator, running rough but somehow still running at all. The wreck is ancient, buried in sand long since irradiated of life, and would have been picked clean by other scavs long before she got there if the burned black hull of it didn’t blend in near-seamlessly with the jagged rocks surrounding the crash site.

She stumbled on it a while ago and nearly dismissed it as worth exploring further than necessary to strip out the easiest salvage, but then she'd picked up on the telltale energy signature. A working genny is more than worth the hassle of getting out here and hauling it back, of sliding her way down haphazardly sloping corridors and choking on the black powdery smell of old, old death.

Furiosa follows the thrum as it grows louder, holding her flickering lantern high to avoid putting her foot through anymore crumbly ribcages of whoever had been in the ship when it went down, wishing she maybe hadn’t passed up that upgrade for her prosthesis’s primitive inboard scanner to save her credits towards getting a vid-player for the girls to share.

The scanner’s still good enough to pick up on some things, though, and when it beeps the alert code for 'lifesign detected' she instantly pulls her heavy blade out from the belts around her waist and braces herself for the reek of cave-dwellers, for the hiss of scales-on-metal. If she’s close enough to a nest for the scanner to pick up on it, she’s close enough for the beasts to know exactly where she is as well.

But the attack doesn’t come. Furiosa waits a long moment, tense, until she wonders if the scanner really is just due to be overhauled. She dismisses the alert, giving it another moment to be sure there’s nothing but still dead air around herself before continuing.

There’s a door in front of her where the genny’s noise is louder, cracked open where a beam came crashing through. She shoves her way through the gap and drops down the slanted floor into a room that must be where the generator lives, it’s rumbling and humming so loudly.

The lantern dimly illuminates the space enough to tell that it’s a cryo bay, multiple empty and still sleeping tubes lined up around the wall, and she shivers to think of the cold blankness KT talked about from her ranger days, being frozen like a vid on pause from port to port. No wonder there's a genny tucked away here, where the spacers would need a life-support backup in case the main power from the engine failed.

Furiosa turns away from the black tubes and tracks the thick power-lines back to the generator, tucked behind a warped-but-intact wall panel. It’ll be a long job to get it free, and tricky to manage hauling it out of the tilted starship by herself, but this far away from the elements it’s still shiny when she gets a look at it, and she smiles to think of all the credits it’ll fetch.

Disengaging the lines takes a minute while assessing that the genny can handle being shut down entirely takes slightly longer, and then when she's satisfied with the odds she’s flicking the kill switch. The rumble fades away as the reaction inside cools for the first time in what might be dozens of years, lasting as only the best old tech can.

Without the noise of it the room is silent and still again, only Furiosa’s breathing and the quiet movements of the servos in her arm to be heard.

Except. There’s still something making noise, a quiet drag of air out of sync with her own breathing, and she worries that maybe she’s found a nest after all. She takes the risk of wasting battery to turn the lantern up a notch, illuminating the cryo bay properly.

Nothing, no cave-dweller nest to be seen. Just the empty row of sleeper tubes and some debris from the crash piled up against the tilted wall.

Something shifts in the corner of her vision and she whirls, blade raised, only to see absolutely nothing out of place. The scanner beeps again, even though Furiosa had dismissed the alert already, and it’s an unusual enough code that she takes a cautious step forward- 'lifesign in distress.'

A second later there’s the unmistakable sound of flesh hitting metal, noises that are nothing like a cave-dweller’s hunting shriek. She realizes with a sinking feeling that not all the tubes are empty, after all.

Behind the thick glass panel of one there’s a humanoid man staring at her with round animal-scared eyes, hair grown and matted in a way that speaks of cryo malfunction, of impartial freezing. He must have been under just enough for the life-support to keep him going, but by the frantically angry way he’s banging his fists against the walls of the tube, cracked voice growling out something that might be an alien language or might be nothing but gibberish, not under far enough for him to have had pleasant dreams.

Before Furiosa can decide whether to even try to see if he responds to any of the languages she knows, his wild movements hit the internal release latch and the tube opens with a creaking hiss. The man tries leaping for her, fingernails grown long and claw-like, but one of his legs crumples as soon as he’s out of the support of the tube, the reek of old old blood hitting her nose, and he falls back against the slanted wall with a strangled whimper.

Furiosa watches the man try to curl up into himself and thinks that she should kill him before he tries attacking again, except he doesn’t seem like much a threat now that it looks like the rush of adrenaline in his veins is fading beneath whatever pain he’s feeling. That and she can practically hear Angharad’s voice in the back of her head, rhapsodizing about the value of preserving life even on their dead little planet.

The man moans lowly and shakes his head, muttering to himself, glancing up at the bright light of her lantern only to dart back away as if it hurts his eyes after so long in the dark but he still can’t help looking.

Oh _Mothers_ , Furiosa thinks as she slips her blade back into her belt and reaches for her canteen instead, this is going to be _much_ harder than just a salvage job.


End file.
